Recording was real time (no sections cut out), but did filter out some low frequency noise of distant motor vehicles and low-freq. rumble. Recorded in forest (wilderness area) near trees that had evidence of woodpecker foraging. The same morning had several sightings of pileated woodpeckers in this location. Temperature was about 38 deg F., clear morning.

The recording was extracted from the last 6 minutes of a 59 minute video taken with my camera, a Panasonic FZ200, with an added external Sennheiser MKE 400 microphone set up on a tripod in the parking area of the entrance to Linley Valley (Coddle Lake) Park at the end of Burma Road in Nanaimo, BC. A PIWO nest that had been discovered nine days earlier on May 29 still had two nestlings. Adults returned to feed the nestlings roughly every hour. While waiting, the nestlings were generally quiet. The nest was about 5 meters up in a large snag about 1 meter from the top and about 10 meters from the parking area.

The recording starts with both nestlings sticking their heads out of the nest waiting. At 0:05 a male adult arrives at the nest. One nestlings starts begging while the other gives out a short adult-like call and gets the first meal, regurgitated by the adult, at 00:07. That nestling proceeds to disappear into the nest leaving the other nestling alone to beg to the adult. At 0:12 this second nestling gets its first meal. At 0:19 this nestling gets a second meal. After poking at the adult the nestling gets a third course at 0:33 and a fourth at 0:43. Subsequent attempts to poke the adult for more fail and the adult just hangs on the tree as if waiting for something for 4 more minutes during which time the nestling begs continuously. Finally, the adult leaves after nearly 5 minutes at the nest. A few seconds later at 5:33 a drumming sound is heard, presumably by the adult, and both nestling heads appear outside the nest. The first nestling makes a couple more adult like calls at 5:40 and the camera battery dies shortly thereafter ending the recording.

The recording will end up online eventually and I will provide a link here.

Individual flying in from the NE. Calling continually while flying. Then perched in the very top of a dead tree and began foraging by flaying bark. No vocalizations after perching on the tree, but other PIWO could be heard in the background.

Habitat

Boardwalk through Cypress/Tupelo Gum swamp. Initially thick Tupelo Gum stand and then opens up into a broad open, grassy swamp with some isolated trees.

Starts at 10 seconds through 30 seconds - while hiking near the ski area, loud drumming heard with reverberation. we tracked the pileated down to about 15 meters and recorded this at close range on Samsung Note 3